July 12, 2025 • 15 mins
It was a trial that gripped the nation.
The death of Pauline Hanna in her Remuera home. The arrest of her husband, eye surgeon, Philip Polkinghorne. And his trial and acquittal, that became one of the most high profile in New Zealand history.
Not only focusing on Pauline’s death but one that uncovered scandalous revelations of meth, sex and money.
Journalist and true crime author, Steve Braunias, followed the case throughout.
His new book is called Polkinghorne.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talks'b Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It was a trial that gripped the nation. The death
of Pauline Hannah and her rem you were a home,
the rest of her husband, I surgeon Philip Polkinghorn, and
his trial and acquittal that became one of the most
high profile in New Zealand's history, not only focusing on
Pauline's death, but one that uncovered scandalous revelations of meth
and sex and money. Journalist and true crime author Steve
(00:34):
Brounius followed the case throughout his new book is called Polkinghorn.
Steve Brounius is worth me now, Good morning, good morning,
so good to see you. Last time you were in
a studio with me, you announced that you were finished
with writing true crime. You said to me, for Jeska,
it's time to do something more cheerful. What got you
back into the High Court?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is more cheerful. Weirdly enough, it's the murder trial
which seemed to chair a nation at the time, the
Philip Polkinghorn murder trial.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
But interesting, you weren't hugely interested in this case before
the trial.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
No, not really. I was aware that other people were
in the Herald newsroom in particular, and I was aware
that it was probably going to be fairly high profile,
but otherwise I hadn't taken much notice of it. And indeed,
when I arrived, I thought, oh, you know, I'll write
(01:33):
about it for a couple of days and then head towards,
you know, some sort of more optimistic journalism.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So what was it about it that grabbed you? Why
did you stay?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah? It took me by surprise, it was. It was
just so ridiculously interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
The terrible truth about a lot of murder trials is
that for a large part of them, they're quite boring.
They wrote Neeric, they are exactly what you expect, and
this one was not. This one was based on an
incredible premise that Philip Pulkinghorn had not only killed his
(02:21):
wife in their beautiful home and remi Weera above Oraqi Lagoon,
but that he had stage to death to look like
a suicide in the most detailed and appalling ways. He
was also arrested and pleaded guilty very reluctantly, to possession
(02:46):
of myth amphetamine. All the sort of conduct coming from
a very respected would seem to be very very good.
Eye surgeon was just so captivating, and you know, I
looked upon it as a kind of a portrait of Orc,
(03:07):
as well as the central drama and central mystery of
was Pauline Hannah killed or had she died by suicide?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Have you ever seen a trial like this?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
No, nothing, nothing remotely like it. I was kind of
suspicious of it in a way, Francescain as much. I thought, oh,
you know, for a little while, I thought, oh, this
is just a media beat up, you know, death souls.
Are we just going crazy? And then every now and then,
(03:42):
you know, a prosecutor or someone from the defense team
would turn to me and you know, at recess over
a cup of tea and go, God a mighty. Never
had anything like this before, have you? And it's like
everyone everyone was experiencing the same thing. There was nothing,
there was nothing standard about it. There never will be
(04:03):
anything like this again. I don't think.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I want to say now that about halfway through the
book you kind of pause and you acknowledge that for
all the drugs and the sex and the scandals, a woman,
Pauline Hannah had died. A life was lost, and it
felt like sometimes that was forgotten.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yes, that's right. Pauline was the sort of absent figure
in this and this trial, and that it was you know,
polking On had like main character energy, but it was
only there really, and it only existed for the Crown
on the police to seek justice for Pauline Hannah, who
(04:45):
I would really have liked to have met. I'll tell
you that she just seemed super funny, very warm, very
smart to her. The list of the authors that she
wanted to read that she you know, did it. One
of her last searches that the police found was like, Wow,
that's news. Will are to be wanting to read the
(05:08):
works of Zola flow Bear, Martin Amos, Julian Barnes. I
was thought she I would have loved to have met
her and sat down over a veno and had a
conversation with her. She seemed like a lovely person.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
What was the police investigation sound, Steve.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Ah, you should ask that, and I am critical of
that in the book and during the trial I was
as well, Oh, it's hard to know what else they
could have done there with some pretty obvious defects, but
(05:52):
you know they were right, of course, I think to
to you know, put the charges to Polkinghorn and to
bring this to trial. I mean, the basic thing of it, Francesca,
is that horse sense tells you that the Crown were right.
(06:18):
It was a particularly good closing address by Alicia McClintock,
the Crown prosecutor, in which she thought she just added
it all up, and horse sense said she is correct. However,
the fact said otherwise. So it was common sense versus evidence,
and the evidence was sorely lacking. And when the defense
(06:44):
called their own two expert witnesses in the form of
two forensic pathologists, they were so plausible that this was
not death by homicide, and you felt, long before the
verdict that the trial was over.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
It's interesting you say that because you sort of felt
I sort of felt that with the people that I
spoke to. I think initially the public was very swayed
by the nature of the stories, you know, but then,
as you say, when the pathology came out and the
evidence was presented, it kind of threw a lot into question.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yes, it didn't it. They had a great story, They
had this awful word, a great narrative. You know, he
had killed her to be with the woman of his
dreams a sex worker called Madison Ashton, with whom he
had formed a de facto relationship, and so it was
(07:47):
kind of like the oldest motive in the book. He'd
killed for love, and he'd also had this prolific enjoyment
of sex workers, which you know, of course, only added
to the bizarreness and of of the trial story for
(08:07):
journalists and for the public too, But all that seemed
to be a grand and spectacular side show what it
seemed to be, and that you know, even if you
were like really really steadfast and thinking that he had
(08:30):
that she had been killed, even if you really really
believed it with every fiber and you loathed this person
who did have loathsome aspects to his personality, Why is
it then that the forensics, the pathology of it, we're
(08:52):
all pointing pretty much one way that she had died
by suicide.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Took me about the last chapter in the book. Was
it you that visited doctor Polkinghorn's home.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I have been to his home, But there's a last
chapter in the book which I don't.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Want to give too much away because it's absolutely stunning.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, the last I won't say too much
of that case either. But yeah, the last chapter in
the book is an encounter with phil and I call
them that diminutive, that jolly affectionate name, because I did
like him. We spent quite a bit of time chatting,
(09:37):
mainly small talk during the trial. I'm not entirely small talk,
and kept in touch to a small degree after the trial.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
You had the opportunity to have lunch with Medicine Ashton.
What did you make of her?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Oh? Yeah, Madison Ashton really the most vivid person and
the entire story, and would have been the most vivid witness.
Phillips are Moore chose not to come to trial because
she felt the police disrespected her, and she'd probably very
(10:13):
good reasons to think that. But what did I think
of her? I thought she was adorable, She was extremely smart.
You know, I was kind of nervous meeting her because
you wanted to go well, you want to you want
to conduct a good and insightful interview. And it's almost
(10:38):
not till afterwards that the pressure is off as a professional,
you know, journalist or author, that you reflect on how
intelligent she was, you know, when you look at the
I looked at the transcript of the interview and she
(10:59):
speaks better than most people write these perfectly formed sentences
and very funny. But she's a complicated person as well,
and she had been caught up with you know, she
hates phil She does not share my good cheer towards him.
(11:23):
She hates him and she thinks that he should have
been found guilty. But yeah, she lived through an extraordinary
chapter really in not just sort of New Zealand criminal history,
but our New Zealand's social history.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Will you be reading Dr Pokinhorn's book, his own book
about this trial, apparently writing?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I probably will, I'll, i'll yeah. Good luck to him. Really,
he's you know, as we now know through the dogged
reporting of Shane Curry at The Herald, he's taking a
writing class and he needs it. I have seen a
chap and it's kind of dense and unreadable. But you know,
he's got a hell of a story to tell. So yeah,
(12:13):
I will be reading it. I will be almost certainly
watching the I think there's a new installment of the
documentary right coming up this week. And yet, you know,
you know, I don't sort of leap to read the
latest development post trial on the Philip Polkinghorn story. I'm not.
(12:38):
I don't feel sort of obsessed about it.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I am.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
You know, I don't feel like i'm I don't feel
driven to be a volur on every single development on
the strange life of Philip Polkinghorn. And yet, of course,
you know, it was my it was really my entire
life to tell you the truth franchise for the months
(13:07):
of the trial and the months afterwards when I wrote
the book, I dreamed it, I talked about it incessantly.
I thought about it all the time all the time.
I don't drive, so I am. I basically live on
a bus, and I can easily remember all these times
(13:31):
are sitting on a bus, this passenger on a bus
quietly thinking about Philip Polkinghorn.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You mentioned in the book that you've got no real
idea whether doctor Polkinghorn killed his wife. Is that still
the case?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yes, it is still the case. And I felt I
felt kind of disappointed in myself that I should be
able to come up with some declarative answer and some
big confident announcement. But I'm not. I always was sort
of open about it, you know, before the trial, during it,
(14:10):
and after and remained so you know, there was that
three part documentary series which aired last year, which I
thought was kind of predictable and as much it's it's
it's it's motivating idea was to question the verdict and
(14:36):
you know, to to to pile it on really and
to basically presented him as guilty, which I thought was
kind of predictable and a little bit easy. It's a
really well made documentary. I shouldn't be so critical of it.
It's really well made. It's really well crafted. It's got
incredible interviews with Madison Ashton and Polkinghorn before the trial began.
(15:02):
It's a really good piece of work. But this whole
sort of idea of a terrible injustice has been done
and we must set out to correct it. I find
a little bit phony and not kind of realistic. It's
certainly not what my book sets out to do.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Steve, thank you so much for stepping back into the
High Court and delivering us another absolutely fabulous true chrime book.
Really appreciate it well.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
That was journalist and true crime author Steve Brounius. His
book about the trial and acquittal of Philip Polkinhorn is
installs this Tuesday. It's something called Pokinghorn For.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
More from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen live
to news talks it'd be from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talks'b Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
It was a trial that gripped the nation. The death
of Pauline Hannah and her rem you were a home,
the rest of her husband, I surgeon Philip Polkinghorn, and
his trial and acquittal that became one of the most
high profile in New Zealand's history, not only focusing on
Pauline's death, but one that uncovered scandalous revelations of meth
and sex and money. Journalist and true crime author Steve
(00:34):
Brounius followed the case throughout his new book is called Polkinghorn.
Steve Brounius is worth me now, Good morning, good morning,
so good to see you. Last time you were in
a studio with me, you announced that you were finished
with writing true crime. You said to me, for Jeska,
it's time to do something more cheerful. What got you
back into the High Court?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
This is more cheerful. Weirdly enough, it's the murder trial
which seemed to chair a nation at the time, the
Philip Polkinghorn murder trial.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
But interesting, you weren't hugely interested in this case before
the trial.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
No, not really. I was aware that other people were
in the Herald newsroom in particular, and I was aware
that it was probably going to be fairly high profile,
but otherwise I hadn't taken much notice of it. And indeed,
when I arrived, I thought, oh, you know, I'll write
(01:33):
about it for a couple of days and then head towards,
you know, some sort of more optimistic journalism.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So what was it about it that grabbed you? Why
did you stay?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah? It took me by surprise, it was. It was
just so ridiculously interesting.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
The terrible truth about a lot of murder trials is
that for a large part of them, they're quite boring.
They wrote Neeric, they are exactly what you expect, and
this one was not. This one was based on an
incredible premise that Philip Pulkinghorn had not only killed his
(02:21):
wife in their beautiful home and remi Weera above Oraqi Lagoon,
but that he had stage to death to look like
a suicide in the most detailed and appalling ways. He
was also arrested and pleaded guilty very reluctantly, to possession
(02:46):
of myth amphetamine. All the sort of conduct coming from
a very respected would seem to be very very good.
Eye surgeon was just so captivating, and you know, I
looked upon it as a kind of a portrait of Orc,
(03:07):
as well as the central drama and central mystery of
was Pauline Hannah killed or had she died by suicide?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Have you ever seen a trial like this?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
No, nothing, nothing remotely like it. I was kind of
suspicious of it in a way, Francescain as much. I thought, oh,
you know, for a little while, I thought, oh, this
is just a media beat up, you know, death souls.
Are we just going crazy? And then every now and then,
(03:42):
you know, a prosecutor or someone from the defense team
would turn to me and you know, at recess over
a cup of tea and go, God a mighty. Never
had anything like this before, have you? And it's like
everyone everyone was experiencing the same thing. There was nothing,
there was nothing standard about it. There never will be
(04:03):
anything like this again. I don't think.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I want to say now that about halfway through the
book you kind of pause and you acknowledge that for
all the drugs and the sex and the scandals, a woman,
Pauline Hannah had died. A life was lost, and it
felt like sometimes that was forgotten.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yes, that's right. Pauline was the sort of absent figure
in this and this trial, and that it was you know,
polking On had like main character energy, but it was
only there really, and it only existed for the Crown
on the police to seek justice for Pauline Hannah, who
(04:45):
I would really have liked to have met. I'll tell
you that she just seemed super funny, very warm, very
smart to her. The list of the authors that she
wanted to read that she you know, did it. One
of her last searches that the police found was like, Wow,
that's news. Will are to be wanting to read the
(05:08):
works of Zola flow Bear, Martin Amos, Julian Barnes. I
was thought she I would have loved to have met
her and sat down over a veno and had a
conversation with her. She seemed like a lovely person.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
What was the police investigation sound, Steve.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Ah, you should ask that, and I am critical of
that in the book and during the trial I was
as well, Oh, it's hard to know what else they
could have done there with some pretty obvious defects, but
(05:52):
you know they were right, of course, I think to
to you know, put the charges to Polkinghorn and to
bring this to trial. I mean, the basic thing of it, Francesca,
is that horse sense tells you that the Crown were right.
(06:18):
It was a particularly good closing address by Alicia McClintock,
the Crown prosecutor, in which she thought she just added
it all up, and horse sense said she is correct. However,
the fact said otherwise. So it was common sense versus evidence,
and the evidence was sorely lacking. And when the defense
(06:44):
called their own two expert witnesses in the form of
two forensic pathologists, they were so plausible that this was
not death by homicide, and you felt, long before the
verdict that the trial was over.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
It's interesting you say that because you sort of felt
I sort of felt that with the people that I
spoke to. I think initially the public was very swayed
by the nature of the stories, you know, but then,
as you say, when the pathology came out and the
evidence was presented, it kind of threw a lot into question.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yes, it didn't it. They had a great story, They
had this awful word, a great narrative. You know, he
had killed her to be with the woman of his
dreams a sex worker called Madison Ashton, with whom he
had formed a de facto relationship, and so it was
(07:47):
kind of like the oldest motive in the book. He'd
killed for love, and he'd also had this prolific enjoyment
of sex workers, which you know, of course, only added
to the bizarreness and of of the trial story for
(08:07):
journalists and for the public too, But all that seemed
to be a grand and spectacular side show what it
seemed to be, and that you know, even if you
were like really really steadfast and thinking that he had
(08:30):
that she had been killed, even if you really really
believed it with every fiber and you loathed this person
who did have loathsome aspects to his personality, Why is
it then that the forensics, the pathology of it, we're
(08:52):
all pointing pretty much one way that she had died
by suicide.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Took me about the last chapter in the book. Was
it you that visited doctor Polkinghorn's home.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
I have been to his home, But there's a last
chapter in the book which I don't.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Want to give too much away because it's absolutely stunning.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, the last I won't say too much
of that case either. But yeah, the last chapter in
the book is an encounter with phil and I call
them that diminutive, that jolly affectionate name, because I did
like him. We spent quite a bit of time chatting,
(09:37):
mainly small talk during the trial. I'm not entirely small talk,
and kept in touch to a small degree after the trial.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
You had the opportunity to have lunch with Medicine Ashton.
What did you make of her?
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Oh? Yeah, Madison Ashton really the most vivid person and
the entire story, and would have been the most vivid witness.
Phillips are Moore chose not to come to trial because
she felt the police disrespected her, and she'd probably very
(10:13):
good reasons to think that. But what did I think
of her? I thought she was adorable, She was extremely smart.
You know, I was kind of nervous meeting her because
you wanted to go well, you want to you want
to conduct a good and insightful interview. And it's almost
(10:38):
not till afterwards that the pressure is off as a professional,
you know, journalist or author, that you reflect on how
intelligent she was, you know, when you look at the
I looked at the transcript of the interview and she
(10:59):
speaks better than most people write these perfectly formed sentences
and very funny. But she's a complicated person as well,
and she had been caught up with you know, she
hates phil She does not share my good cheer towards him.
(11:23):
She hates him and she thinks that he should have
been found guilty. But yeah, she lived through an extraordinary
chapter really in not just sort of New Zealand criminal history,
but our New Zealand's social history.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Will you be reading Dr Pokinhorn's book, his own book
about this trial, apparently writing?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I probably will, I'll, i'll yeah. Good luck to him. Really,
he's you know, as we now know through the dogged
reporting of Shane Curry at The Herald, he's taking a
writing class and he needs it. I have seen a
chap and it's kind of dense and unreadable. But you know,
he's got a hell of a story to tell. So yeah,
(12:13):
I will be reading it. I will be almost certainly
watching the I think there's a new installment of the
documentary right coming up this week. And yet, you know,
you know, I don't sort of leap to read the
latest development post trial on the Philip Polkinghorn story. I'm not.
(12:38):
I don't feel sort of obsessed about it.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I am.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
You know, I don't feel like i'm I don't feel
driven to be a volur on every single development on
the strange life of Philip Polkinghorn. And yet, of course,
you know, it was my it was really my entire
life to tell you the truth franchise for the months
(13:07):
of the trial and the months afterwards when I wrote
the book, I dreamed it, I talked about it incessantly.
I thought about it all the time all the time.
I don't drive, so I am. I basically live on
a bus, and I can easily remember all these times
(13:31):
are sitting on a bus, this passenger on a bus
quietly thinking about Philip Polkinghorn.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
You mentioned in the book that you've got no real
idea whether doctor Polkinghorn killed his wife. Is that still
the case?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Yes, it is still the case. And I felt I
felt kind of disappointed in myself that I should be
able to come up with some declarative answer and some
big confident announcement. But I'm not. I always was sort
of open about it, you know, before the trial, during it,
(14:10):
and after and remained so you know, there was that
three part documentary series which aired last year, which I
thought was kind of predictable and as much it's it's
it's it's motivating idea was to question the verdict and
(14:36):
you know, to to to pile it on really and
to basically presented him as guilty, which I thought was
kind of predictable and a little bit easy. It's a
really well made documentary. I shouldn't be so critical of it.
It's really well made. It's really well crafted. It's got
incredible interviews with Madison Ashton and Polkinghorn before the trial began.
(15:02):
It's a really good piece of work. But this whole
sort of idea of a terrible injustice has been done
and we must set out to correct it. I find
a little bit phony and not kind of realistic. It's
certainly not what my book sets out to do.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Steve, thank you so much for stepping back into the
High Court and delivering us another absolutely fabulous true chrime book.
Really appreciate it well.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
That was journalist and true crime author Steve Brounius. His
book about the trial and acquittal of Philip Polkinhorn is
installs this Tuesday. It's something called Pokinghorn For.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
More from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen live
to news talks it'd be from nine am Sunday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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